The 1996 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 96, was the 10th UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial football tournament contested by European nations and organised by UEFA. It took place in England from 8 to 30 June 1996.

It was the first European Championship to feature 16 finalists, following UEFA's decision to expand the tournament from eight teams. Games were staged in eight cities and, although not all games were sold out, the tournament holds the European Championship's second-highest aggregate attendance (1,276,000) and average per game (41,158) for the 16-team format,[1] surpassed only in 2012.[2] It was also the first European Championships where 3 points for a win were awarded during the qualification and group stages, following the previous system of 2 points being awarded for a win, reflecting the growing use of this system in domestic leagues throughout the world during the previous decade.

Germany won the tournament, beating the Czech Republic 2–1 in the final with a golden goal during extra time; this was the first major competition to be decided using this method. This was also Germany's first major title won as a unified nation.

At the time of the bidding process, it had not yet been confirmed that sixteen teams would be participating. Instead, the bids were largely prepared as if hosting an eight-team tournament, meaning only four venues were due to be required.[3] All candidates had to submit their plans by 10 December 1991.[4]

The hosting of the event was contested by five bids: Austria, England, Greece, the Netherlands and Portugal. The English bid was selected by the UEFA Executive Committee at a meeting in Lisbon on 5 May 1992.[5] In the year preceding the decision, the English FA had dropped plans to also bid for the 1998 World Cup in order to gain the support of other UEFA members who were planning to bid for that event.[5]

The hosts, England, drew 1–1 with Switzerland in the opening match of Group A when Alan Shearer's 23rd-minute goal was cancelled out by a late Kubilay Türkyilmaz penalty kick.[6] England defeated rivals Scotland 2–0 in their next game, and then produced one of their finest performances ever with a 4–1 win over the Netherlands.[7]Patrick Kluivert's late goal for the Netherlands secured his team second place in the group and ensured that Scotland would exit another major competition on goal difference.[8]

Group B had Western European France and Spain, along with Balkan World Cup participants Romania and Bulgaria. France and Spain dominated the group,[9][10] with France avenging Bulgaria for the 1994 qualification debacle,[11] and World Cup quarter-finalists Romania going home,[12] with no points and only one goal scored.

Groups C and D saw the Czech Republic and Croatia, whose national teams had only recently come into existence, qualify for the knockout stages. The Czechs lost to Germany, the eventual group winners, in their opener, but then defeated Italy and drew with Russia.[13][14] Italy's defeat meant they had to beat Germany in their final game to progress, but the World Cup finalists could only manage a 0–0 draw and were eliminated.[15] In Group D, Croatia qualified for the quarter-finals, with wins over Turkey (1–0) and Denmark (3–0).[16] The loss to the Croats ultimately sent the Danes, the surprise champions of 1992, home. Turkey became the first team since the introduction of a group stage to be eliminated without gaining a point or scoring a goal.

The other three quarter-finalists were Portugal (whose "Golden Generation" was competing at its first major tournament), Spain, and a France team featuring a young Zinedine Zidane.

The knockout stages were characterised by negative, defensive play; as a result, only nine goals were scored in the seven games and four of the matches were decided on penalties. The first quarter-final between the hosts and Spain ended goalless, after Spain had two goals disallowed and two claims for a penalty denied.[17] The English progressed 4–2 on spot kicks.[18] France and Netherlands also played out a 0–0 draw, with France winning the penalty shootout 5–4.[19]Jürgen Klinsmann opened the scoring for Germany in their match against Croatia. A goal from Davor Šuker evened the score after 51 minutes, before Matthias Sammer of Germany scored eight minutes later, and the game ended 2–1 to Germany.[20] Czech Republic progressed after beating Portugal 1–0.[21][22]

The first semi-final, featuring France and Czech Republic, resulted in another 0–0 draw and penalties. Reynald Pedros was the one player to miss in the shootout, as Czech Republic won the penalty shoot-out 6–5.[23] The other semi-final was a repeat of the 1990 World Cup semi-final between Germany and England. Alan Shearer headed in after three minutes to give his side the lead, but Stefan Kuntz evened the score less than 15 minutes later, and the score remained 1–1 after 90 minutes. In extra time, Paul Gascoigne came very close to scoring a golden goal, but fractionally missed a cross from Shearer in front of the empty goal, Darren Anderton hit the post, and Kuntz had a goal disallowed for pushing. Neither team was able to find a second goal. In penalties, both sides scored their first five kicks, but in the sixth round, Gareth Southgate had his penalty saved, allowing Andreas Möller to score the winning goal.[24]

The final saw the Czech Republic hoping to repeat Euro 1976 when Czechoslovakia defeated West Germany; the Germans were aiming to win their third European Championship. Patrik Berger scored from a penalty in 59th minute to put the Czechs ahead. German substitute Oliver Bierhoff then scored to make it 1–1. Five minutes into extra time, Bierhoff's shot was mishandled by Czech goalkeeper Kouba and the ball ended up in the back of the net for the first golden goal in the history of the competition.[25] Germany were European champions again, the first time as a unified country.

On 30 November 1992, UEFA formally decided to expand the tournament to sixteen teams.[26] UEFA cited the increased number of international teams following the recent break up of the Soviet Union and of Yugoslavia – rising from 33 UEFA members in 1988 to 48 by 1994 – as a driving factor behind the expansion.[27] Forty-seven teams ultimately entered to compete for the fifteen remaining places in the finals, alongside hosts England.[28]

The draw for the qualifying competition took place in Manchester on 22 January 1994.[29] The teams were divided into eight groups, each containing either six or five teams. The qualifying process began in April 1994 and concluded in December 1995. At the conclusion of the qualifying group stage in November 1995, the eight group winners qualified automatically, along with the six highest ranked second placed teams. The remaining two second placed teams – The Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland – contested a one-off play-off match in England to decide the final qualifier.

With the extended format, three teams were able to qualify for their first European Championship: Bulgaria, Switzerland and Turkey. Croatia, the Czech Republic and Russia competed for the first time in their own right since the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union (though the Russian team is considered by FIFA to be the direct descendant of the Soviet Union and CIS teams that had appeared in six past tournaments and the Czech team is the descendant of the Czechoslovakia team). Seven of the eight participants at the previous tournament in 1992 were again present, with only Sweden – despite also having finished third in the World Cup two years earlier – missing out.

In the draw procedure, the unseeded teams were drawn one-by-one and placed consecutively into four groups labeled I to IV. The first four were placed in position 4 of each group, the next four in position 3, and the last 4 in position 2. Next the four seeded teams were drawn and placed consecutively into position 1 of the groups. While it was decreed in advance that England's group (labeled as III) would be Group A, the remaining three groups then consecutively (from I, II, to IV) had a letter drawn to decide the name of their group, and therefore determine what venues they would play at.[30] The balls were drawn by UEFA figures Gerhard Aigner and Lennart Johansson.[30]

Since the implementation of the Taylor Report in 1990, following the 1989 Hillsborough stadium disaster, England now had enough all-seater stadia of sufficient capacity to hold an expanded tournament due to the necessary stadium refurbishment by its leading clubs. The stadium capacities listed in the table are for the time of the tournament.

To accommodate the expansion from a 8-team finals tournament to 16 teams, the format was changed from that used in 1992 with the addition of two extra groups in the group stage, and an extra round in the knockout phases. The four groups (A to D) still contained four teams each, with the top two from each group still going through to the knockout phase. 8 teams then went into the new quarter-finals, ahead of the usual semi-finals and final, with 8 teams going out at the group stage. The format is exactly the one which was applied to the 1962, 1966 and 1970 World Cups, except for the absence of a third place play-off.

A custom version of the Adidas Questra, the Questra Europa, was the official match ball of the championships. The design of the ball included a reworking of the England badge, and was the first coloured ball in a major football tournament.[32]

The teams finishing in the top two positions in each of the four groups progress to the quarter-finals, while the bottom two teams in each group were eliminated from the tournament. For the first time at a European Championship three points were awarded for a win, with one for a draw and a none for a defeat.

If two or more teams finished level on points after completion of the group matches, the following tie-breakers were used to determine the final ranking:

Higher number of points obtained in the matches played between the teams in question;

Superior goal difference resulting from the matches played between the teams in question (if more than two teams finish equal on points);

Higher number of goals scored in the matches played between the teams in question (if more than two teams finish equal on points);

If, after having applied criteria 1 to 3 to more than two teams, two teams still have an equal ranking, criteria 1 to 3 are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the two teams in question to determine the final rankings of the two teams. If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria 5 to 9 apply in the order given;

The knockout stage was a single-elimination tournament with each round eliminating the losers. Any game that was undecided by the end of the regular 90 minutes, was followed by up to thirty minutes of extra time. For the first time in a major football competition, the golden goal system was applied, whereby the first team to score during the extra time would become the winner. If no goal was scored there would be a penalty shoot-out to determine the winner. For the first time the final was won by a golden goal.

The competition slogan was Football Comes Home reflecting that the sport's rules were first standardised in the United Kingdom. UEFA President Lennart Johansson had said that the organisation had felt it time to bring the event "back to the motherland of football".[29]

The song was prominently sung by England fans during all their games, and was also chanted by the German team upon parading the trophy in Berlin after the tournament. It was even referenced by future Prime Minister Tony Blair in an address at the 1996 Labour Party Conference with the line: "Seventeen years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming, Labour's coming home".[37]

"Three Lions" was the official song of the England team, and is the song most strongly connected with the tournament, however the official song of the tournament was "We're in This Together" by Simply Red. The song was performed at the tournament's opening ceremony.[38]

The British Royal Mint issued a commemorative £2 coin in 1996, which featured a representation of a football, "1996" in the centre, and 16 small rings representing the 16 competing teams. Further special coins were only issued in the Isle of Man and Gibraltar.[39]

The official mascot, 'Goaliath', was designed in a similar fashion to the original World Cup mascot from the 1966 World Cup. Goaliath comprised a lion, the image on the English team crest, dressed in an England football strip and football boots whilst holding a football under his right arm.[40]

The Manchester bombing was the first and so far only major terrorist attack in the host city of an ongoing UEFA European Championship. The scheduled match at Old Trafford on the day following the bombing went ahead as planned after the stadium had been heavily guarded overnight and carefully searched; the game, in which Germany defeated Russia 3–0, was watched by a near capacity crowd of 50,700.

After England's defeat to Germany in the semi-finals, a large-scale riot took place in Trafalgar Square and the surrounding area. Further outbreaks of trouble occurred in the streets of several other towns. The police, German-made cars were targeted, with damage also caused to various other properties.[45] A Russian student was stabbed in Brighton after attackers mistook him for being German.[46]

Despite this outbreak, the tournament overall was free of hooliganism, helping rehabilitate England's reputation after their fans' conduct during the previous decades.[45] UEFA's awarding of the tournament to England was in itself a further step in bringing the country back fully into the international fold, coming soon after their decision in 1990 to re-admit English clubs back into UEFA competitions after the indefinite ban issued to them following the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985.[47][48]